How TAFTA/TTIP's Regulatory Co-operation Body Will Undermine Sovereignty

Two Leaks Reveal How TAFTA/TTIP's Regulatory Co-operation Body Will Undermine Sovereignty And Democracy | Techdirt: "a leak back in December 2013 gave a clue about how it might be possible for the US and EU governments to promise that the TAFTA/TTIP agreement would not lower standards, and yet provide a way to dismantle those non-tariff barriers (pdf).

This would be achieved after TTIP was ratified, through the creation of a new body called the Regulatory Council, which would play a key role in how future regulations were made. Effectively, it would provide early access to all new regulations proposed by the US and EU, allowing corporations to voice their objections to any measures that they felt would impede transatlantic trade.

This regulatory ratchet would push standards downwards and reduce costs for business, but only gradually, and after TTIP had come into force -- at which point, nothing could be done about it.

 Since then, things have been quiet on the regulatory front, not least because corporate sovereignty in the form of investor-state dispute settlement emerged as the most contentious issue -- in Europe, at least -- which has rather eclipsed earlier concerns about this supranational regulatory body.

But now, in a single week, we have had two important leaks in this area, both confirming those initial ideas sketched out in 2013 are still very much how TAFTA/TTIP aims to bring about the desired regulatory harmonization.

Corporate Europe Observatory obtained a very recent draft copy of the EU's proposals for the chapter covering regulatory co-operation (pdf), which describes a new transatlantic organization, now called the Regulatory Cooperation Body." 'via Blog this'